UVM trustees reject fossil-fuel divestment

A panel of trustees at the University of Vermont unanimously rejected a proposal for fossil-fuel divestment at a meeting Wednesday.

Their action effectively puts an end to official consideration of a recommendation that the university’s endowment fund eliminate its holdings in companies that deal in fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, which are widely regarded as primary contributors to climate change.

Student activists attending the meeting said afterward that they were not surprised but that they would continue their campaign nevertheless.

The decision came late in a meeting of the the Investment Sub-committee, a three-member group charged with overseeing management of the endowment. That group reports to the Board of Trustees’ Budget, Finance and Investment Committee, which in turn makes recommendations to the full board, which has final authority over the endowment, recently valued at $407 million.

The divestment proposal was formulated in the spring by the Socially Responsible Investment Advisory Council, a composite committee that solicits investment recommendations from UVM constituents, deliberates and advances promising proposals for trustees’ consideration. The council’s report called for divestment from coal and nuclear firms, but not from natural gas companies, and for selective withdarawal from oil companies. Those recommendations didn’t go far enough for many members of Student Climate Culture, the principal driver of the divestment campaign on campus.

After about 10 minutes of discussion Wednesday, sub-committee chairman Sam Bain called the question — that is, whether the sub-committee should advance a proposal to divest from fossil fuels to the Budget, Finance and Investment Committee. Bain and the two other members — David Daigle and Rob Brennan — voted no. Their reasons echoed some of the comments they had made at two previous sub-committee meetings, when the proposal had been discussed at greater length. All three participated by speaker-phone, as UVM staffers sat around a table in the Waterman Building.

“Our primary responsibility is to protect the endowment,” Daigle said, “and my continuing fear is that this proposal would have a significant impact on the ability to balance the risks and rewards within the endowment by cutting out a substantial portion of the economy.”

Brennan agreed: “I don’t think it’s the appropriate thing for us to do as the fiduciaries for this endowment.”

Bain said the sub-committee had reached consensus: “I believe that we are well served to not move this forward because I don’t think we believe that it is in the best interest of the endowment.”

“We wanted to conduct proper due diligence and we did,” Bain said. “I’m glad we did this in an open and consultative way.”

UVM trustees have plenty of company in reaching this decision. Just nine higher education institutions across the country have committed to full or partial fossil-fuel divestment, but most have relatively small holdings. Among them are Sterling and Green Mountain colleges in Vermont.

Trustees at Middlebury College, where the endowment approaches $1 billion and where students have waged a vigorous divestment campaign, rejected the idea earlier this year. Trustees at Harvard and Brown universities have also said no.

Daigle said that he found the process of considering the proposal educational. Bain praised the process, its participants and the respectful way in which it was conducted.

“In the end,” Bain said, “the continued success of UVM and the people who are part of it ... is heavily tied to returns of the endowment that directly support the core of the university, students and faculty.”

Sub-committee meetings are closed to public comment, but Student Climate Culture was invited last month to submit a three-minute video in support of divestment. The video that was produced noted, among other things, that various student, staff and faculty organizations had come out in favor of divestment, and that rejecting divestment would contradict the university’s own teachings and its commitment to being part of the solution to climate change.

The three trustees made no reference to the video at Wednesday’s meeting.

“We’re not surprised, but we’re also not going to stop the campaign for divestment any time soon,” said Ruth Shafer, one of the three attending students, after the meeting. “We won’t stop until they divest, and the question is when.”

“They are very happy with the process and how open they were with it,” she continued, “and the process has let us down, and so escalation next semester will have to be our next step, although I can’t say what that will be yet.”

“In their words they brought it to a conclusion today,” said Blair Rancich, another member of Student Climate Culture, “but I don’t think that’s the case.”

Alex Buckingham disputed the trustees’ contention that they were acting in UVM’s interest, pointing out that divestment had wide support among faculty and student groups.

“It makes you wonder what they mean by UVM’s interest,” he said, “because it’s certainly not the UVM that I know, it’s not like our interest.”